Rot
by p020901
Summary: A very familiar scene, played out once more as the Vytal Festival approaches. Tags: After the War AU, Future, Dark. Alternate what-if of Ire.


Rot.

_Summary_: A very familiar scene, played out once more as the Vytal Festival approaches. _Tags_: After the War AU, Future, Dark. Alternate what-if of Ire.

_Disclaimer_: RWBY belongs to the blessed Monty Oum and Rooster Teeth.

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The sound of motors whirred inside a dimly lit room. Whirring retina gazing down at a city of light as metal hand held onto thin crystal glass.

The General was standing on the top of New Beacon, its' viewing deck on the highest floor where marble now replaced the clockwork machinery and symbols of time that once adorned these walls. From this lofty place a man could have a clear view of all of Vale, stretching outwards from the edge of sea to the broken mountains of Glenn. It was a place to think, to reflect, to scheme and plan - the place where, if one were to trace back the scattered cobwebs of history, find a single common heart-string leading back to the source of it all, the lonesome King lost in struggle against fate.

He was neither a King, nor was he alone.

Blue eyes shifted, and saw silver ones reflected in the mirror, barely a meter the distance between them. He hadn't seen her approach, or even heard a single sound - but the soft pop of wine cog and amber liquid pouring into glass. Silver met blues, a rosy smile on glossed lips.

"What are you doing up here, hiding from the party, General? Too afraid the big bad wolf might come and get you?" The woman coyly spoke, a soft clinking of glass bottle settling down on a silver tray adding to her sing-song voice. A thin veneer of simple casualcy greeting the sculpture of authority and power made flesh and metal. "Or perhaps... just of little ol' me?"

The man scowled, his lips tugged downward in visible displease. "That's a question I have to ask you, _Headmistress_ Rose." He paused, placing the crystal glass down to refill it with the freshly opened bottle. Amber red filled up his shot glass, a shade not too far dissimilar to a punch bowl years ago. "Shouldn't you be entertaining our... compatriots?"

"What, the high and mighties of Remnant? I'm afraid I must be boring them to death already with my tales of the war, General. And are we back to using last names now?" Her brows furrowed, but the tip of her lips edged up in a half-smile. "Such a shame... And here I was, expecting to see an old friend after so many years..." The gaze in her eyes locked with his, twinkling with some sort of mischievous, teasing delight. "Aren't you too... _Jaune_?"

He glared back at the use of his name. The not-gentle hue of the blue glow of bionic eyes oscillated with the hum of machinery turning, twisting beneath.

He could have picked for his cybernetic eyes in favor of a more seamless replacement, just like half of his body below, yet he didn't. Instead, he had picked something less human, more machine-like, something that would be fitting to the Knight of Steel and Ice.

"Say, you look much better outside of that suit of armor, General. Much less stuffy... and much more handsome." But even this couldn't stop the woman from trying to reach through the aura of authority and power, it seemed, as a sly, suggestive smile came to the woman's lips.

He glared. Her sly smile became amused chuckles.

"...I kid, I kid, General. You and not stuffy... _really_ doesn't go together well."

His glare remained. The woman laughed, unfazed. Before her silver eyes stared deeply into his eyes, sparkling but unjoking.

"Still, you did not answer my question of what makes you come up here. Do you find the ball not to your liking, General Arc?"

"Of course not. It's... excessive, as always." He bluntly replied, to which she only gave a dry, dour smile. "As for the second question, I just wanted to see this city at night. I've always wondered what Ozpin saw from his office, you see."

She followed his gaze, to the moonlit form of the rebuilt Amity Colosseum, a view blocked out by the dark shapes of the airships of the Remnant Combined Force littering the skyline like circling birds of prey. Many more are moored over the RCF base at Glenn, just beyond that broken mountain range, along with far too many soldiers and androids for the simple task of safeguarding a festival.

"..._Tch_. What an eyesore." The smile fell from her lips, in its' place an impertinent frown.

"Perhaps. But a necessary sacrifice."

"'_Necessary_', General? Like all of those unmarked graves my students dug up at the edge of Emerald Forest yesterday?" A hard edge took over her voice as the woman's lips wryly bent upwards, even as the reflections of silver eyes burned on the glass wall. Blues shrugged, unperturbed, raising the crimson glass to his mouth again.

"It isn't the first time travelers got lost and eaten by Grimm."

"'_Grimm_' don't leave behind _neat little holes_ on ones' _forehead_, _General_."

"Then perhaps they were mugged and killed by bandits - all the more reason for me to implement more stringent security measures then." The corners of the man's frown did not twitch the slightest, but if one were to know him they would recognize a slightest trace of amusement in his monotone. "And those students of yours have my commendations, Headmistress. Those '_unmarked_ _graves_' they found were on the _other _edge of the Emerald Forest, after all."

She did not laugh. Her silver eyes glared burningly at his back, no more humor left in her tone.

"...You are not just stopping at there, are you?"

The answer was almost instantaneous. "Of course not. Initiative is the better part of victory, after all." His frown's subtle twitch upwards to anyone that knew him was like an Ursa baring its fangs. "Unlike my predecessor, I'm not content with marching my troops in from a thousand miles away, only to have them sit idly on their backsides and wait for the enemy to strike first."

"You want a crack down." Her eyes narrowed.

"_Bingo_." The General slight twitch became a full on _smile_. "However '_crack down_' is such an _ugly_ word. No, what I'm thinking of is... _merely_ to bring in a few select individuals for _questioning_... _knock in_ a few heads, organize a few public _spectacles_." _Grinning_, he held out his glass in a mock-toast, steel blue eyes not reaching silver orbs. "_All_ with the Council's consent, of course."

Ruby didn't smile back. She took a minute sip from her glass before she put it down on the silver tray, and the Reaper's silver eyes settled unmovingly on the man.

"What you are proposing... Torture, Murder, and _Public Executions_..." She turned quiet, disgust dripping in her voice. "This will _never_ happen, _General Arc_. There's no place for an army in a war of cloaks and daggers."

"And this is where you have it wrong, Headmistress. There's always a place for an army in these kinds of things: _ending it._" Dragging a sip from the crystalline glass, he let the pause convey its' ominous intent, before he continued. "And the High Council may not be so adverse to this proposal as you'd think, Headmistress Rose. After all, I am here as the Head of Security for this festival, am I not?"

"I have noticed." A baleful glare shot back against haughty huff. The fleet of airship parked right outside her window stood attest to that.

There was a few moments before she spoke again, her voice quiet and strained.

"Impromptu firing squads and shallow, unmarked graves... is that where we're now, General?"

"You mean it's any different from the... '_unknown gun man_', and his seemingly random killing spree across Vale these last few months?" The General coldly shot back, blue mechanical eyes settling on hers' reflection with a half-sneer. "Why do I have this feeling that this... '_he_' is a '_she_', Head_mistress_?"

Silver eyes glared at blues reflected on the window screen. But she was silent, at least for a while.

"A perfectly executed surgical strike is the polar opposite of wanton destruction, General. I thought you of all people should understand this well."

"I do. But I also see that it is _not enough, _Headmistress."

"...A peace under barbed wires and jackboots. I thought we have seen the worst of it in Atlas, _Jaune_."

The General's sneer vanished at the calling of his name. Ever so subtly, but not subtle enough, his expression flickered through several at once, before it morphed back into a blank, emotionless mask. The man's hand reached inside his white jacket and pulled out a locked scroll and held it out to her. Its' transparent screen shimmered, hundreds of tiny white dodecahedrons fading into the shape of a crescent arc and three blades crossed together. Her eyes narrowed, staring at the obviously still locked screen before back up at the man, a dry quip leaving her tongue.

"Let me guess: '_For it is in passing that we achieve immortality_'?"

As she had expected, the swords uncrossed and a mechanical voice sounded from the scroll. "_Pass-code confirmed. Access granted._"

A snort found its' way from her throat at how predictable the whole thing was.

The man, unlike what she had expected, did not smile, and simply held it out for her.

Her humor died, and the woman gave the scroll a long, harsh look before taking it out of his hand. Before her iris hardened, and her breath became stuck inside her throat as she saw the contents of the scroll.

_Calculations. Graphs. Military units. Battle-plans. Demographics and predicted changes._ Her fingers curled up behind the scroll's opaque glass surface as she read how future deaths and destruction were reduced to orderly rows of numbers and formulas on the glowing screen, all written in a clinical, detached tone she could almost hear reading it out for her.

'_Based on the established model above, the cost incurred by a short, instigated insurgency and subsequent suppression would be reduced by a factor of five point five six times compared to that of a protracted guerrilla war (see 31a). Factoring in Grimm outbreaks and hypothetical extremis developments may reduce this factor to a reduction of four point six three (see graph 31b). All remains within acceptable parameters._'

Glass clinked on metal tray. The General's now-free hands clasped behind his back. The reflection of the man's mechanical blue eyes locked with glowing orbs of silver.

For a brief instant, Jaune Arc thought he saw Silver Wings.

_Fizz_. Sparks sizzled. The scroll shattered in her hands, uneven pieces of electronics falling onto the floor below.

"...That's the only hard copy of the plan." The General sighed, disappointed. Before he paused when the Huntress' hands had grabbed the scuffles of his collar and forced him to turn facing her.

"Where's the original?" Her voice was quiet, even, never raising above a whisper but the subtle glow in her silver-eyes was louder than any mere shouts. Hands clenching around cloth that covered a deep bisectal scar running from the man's neck down to his heart shook, trembling with mixed fury and grit. But the height difference was too great for any effect, and the man merely gave her an indifferent glare as he only tapped at the piece of metal on the side of his head. A dry, humorless _smile_ on his face.

The aura inside her eyes sizzled and boiled as it clashed against the cold walls of the general's blue eyes. The Huntress internally debated whether she should just rip the knowledge from his brain, consequences and everything else be damned. _The prospect was _oh_-_so_ tempting._

"...Do you _really_ want a war, General?"

Steel blue eyes were set as diamonds as the man slowly, coldly spoke. "You said it yourself, Headmistress. We are already at war." Her jaws tightened, herself fighting back against the innate compulsion to swallow or blink. "I am merely... _expediting_ that process, before the enemy could prepare themselves."

Her clenched hands around his collar tightened, gritted and trembling with indignant fury. "This plan... it's _**monstrous**._ Even for you, Jaune Arc."

"It is. _Monstrous_." The man hollowly mouthed out, a brief trace of humanity in his eyes that flashed by too quickly before it was replaced by ruthless calculations once more. "But efficient. Is that not something '_better_'?"

A stunned silence took over her. Revulsion and horror were the only two words that could describe what she felt at the cold-blooded, inhuman apathy displayed. Broken glass grounded beneath her heels, the woman taking a step backward, her hands having let go of the gruff of his collar.

As she struggled to refind her voice, the general stepped closer to the glass walls separating them from the city under. His back casting an imposing shadow onto the marble floor.

Slowly, the huntress refound her voice. She spoke again, and failed, swallowing; the disgust and contempt dripping from before not barely enough to convey her thought.

"...'_Collateral damages' _and_ 'casualties_', is that what you've taken to call it now...?" She shook her head, finding it hard to breath. "'_Efficient_'... really?"

"'_All wars are measured in attrition_', Charles Arc, the Book of War, line 1:16, section III." The man coldly quoted, his hands clasped behind his back. There was silence, before a cold and harsh sentence rolled from her mouth aiming at the back of the man.

"You are talking about men and women, General Arc." The knuckles of her clenched fist was bone white. "Children. _Innocents_. The very ones we are _sworn_ to _protect_. All this is going to do... is... is-" The huntress swallowed dryly, choking as she found his words morph into her own on her tongue.

"Put an end to everything." Frozen glowing blue orbs snapped back, brimming with grim satisfaction. "The cloaks and daggers, the endless wars, this entire Great Game - It would put an end to _everything_."

"_Everything_ we stand for." Machinery inside blue orbs seized, staring back at baleful silvers.

"...It..." Ruby quietly spoke. "All it would do... is put an end to the very things we stand for."

The man didn't speak. Something stirred beneath cold ice. The first hairline crack showing on his mask of logic, spreading as she quietly continued.

"...'_Wars are won by making the enemy's cost greater than yours... But what decides a victory is one's principle, and how far they are going to fight to preserve it_.'" Ruby Rose said. "Line 2:16. Section III."

"...Jeanne d'Chevalier. The only one to have ever bested him." The man's voice continued where she left off, his brows furrowed as he broke off from the stare and looked up the ceiling. "'_Principle_?'" Jaune Arc shook his head, and from his mouth escaped a bitter, pained smile. "Ha," His body shook, a tremor that became a grating landslide of harsh, uncontrollable laughs. "Ahaha-_haa_!"

"'_Principle_'..." The knight hollowly repeated, shaking his head. "_What do we even stand for, _Ruby_?!_" He growled venomously, so filled with self loathing and dark, coiling hatred it made her want to take a step backwards, but she stood firm unflinchingly. "Happiness in _ignorance_? Freedom _behind four walls_? Peace attained by _daggers to one's back_?" Blue eyes for a moment were filled with pure, unadulterated fury, like brimstone and fire. "Do we even stand for **_anything_**, Ruby, other than just a desperate desire for survival that we use to justify again and again more and more heinous, _disgusting_ acts." He took another step towards her, his words coming hurling out more and more rapidly, until it was a pouring torrent of emotions and aura coiled together. Aura bursting, unchained, washing outwards like heat from a bonfire.

"Look at yourself, and then look at me, _Ruby_ \- after all the deeds we've done, all the compromises, concessions, sacrifices and peace of sleep lost in the name of 'survival' and 'protecting the peace'... After all the bloodshed to keep your '_End of the War_' remain an End, you can still call yourself righteous but not see the necessary, _sensibility_ in what I am doing - _hastening this process to its' logical extreme and save us the countless lives lost in the interludium_-! Can't you?!"

Silence. The knight took in a harsh breath, snorting at her inability to reply. And in mere moments he had reined in his emotions, the raging bonfire now simmering low, waiting behind the fragmentary pieces of the cold mask of indifference.

"...This fire is going to burn away the darkness, Headmistress Rose." He grimly smiled.

"Them, or just anything that dares to stand in your path, General Arc?" The woman retorted back. A brief pause. She reached out again with her words, pleadingly, trying to ask again the question from before. "Do you _really_ want to start a war, _Jaune_?"

"And _end_ it. In one fell swoop." The man gritted at the mention of his name, his hand slashing through the doubts and hesitations that arose like a sword's swing. "_I will not let this world be engulfed in war again because _of-!" Whatever he said was drowned out by external noises and sounds. Both of their heads snapped to the source, to see bursts of multicolored lights shining through the windows, casting shadows on the marble-tiled wall behind them.

_Fireworks_, she thought. Fireworks firing from within Vale that gave the impression that the whole city skyline was on fire.

The clock tower ticked one past twelve.

Her aching hands fell from their readied stance, drawing her to the silver tray again. She poured herself another glass before wordlessly pouring the rest of the bottle's content inside his. He absentmindedly nodded her a '_thanks_' before taking the glass, blue eyes still locked unmovingly from the spectacle displayed outside.

They stood and watched, the grand explosions of stars and colors just beyond the one-way glass walls. Mortar shots colored blue, yellow, and red. Roman candles spewing jets of yellow and red flames high into the sky next to comets and horsetail shells that lazily drifted downward in the wind like fountains of sputtering flares; falling, waning before fading. Peonies, Chrysanthemums and Crosettes weaving together, every burst of passing colors sapping more of the strength displayed by the man. Orange, pink and green reflected in the Knight's eyes, and the General gazed on as rockets whistled their shrill cries as they shot skyward, bursting into patterns of stars and smoke under the bellies of great metallic beasts. Stars that hung in place, particles of Dust sparkling still for an interminable minute, silvers and blues gazing at the lonesome rocket streaking up the sky and set fire to _Haven_, an incandescent flash of blinding white light that for a single, _eternal_ moment seemed like Angel wings spreading out to envelope all of those celebrating, remembering, reminiscent.

The light faded away, leaving behind a room cloaked in darkness and a city wreathed in light. Mechanical blue eyes were still locked in place, like hypnotized, or possessed. Silver eyes saw a moment frozen in time at a horizon half a lifetime ago.

"...I can still hear the sirens, Ruby. The sirens of that day." When the man's lips finally cracked open, what came out was a husked, tired voice, empty and hollow of even the cold fire of conviction from before. "I remember the _match_. _None of it made sense -_ That _hadn't been how things were meant to happen." _His hand clenching around the crystal glass was a hair's breadth away from making it crack. "_Chaos_. _Anarchy_. The sound of broken glasses, Grimm flocking in from beyond Glenn... The Colosseum, _falling_."

Something cracked. An amber red liquid seeped out from the man's tight clenched hand, dripping down, leaving dark splotched spots on the marble floor. Fury re-surging beneath dark ponds like a storm cloud that refused to blow away, as his mouth opened and spat out an inhuman growl. "Don't you see, this is the start of exactly that all over again -_ that gods-damned war_-!"

The growl cut itself short as his mouth popped shut. The feeling of something wet and dripping from her own hands caused her to glance down, and realize how she had unconsciously taken hold of his bleeding hand.

Something seemed to have seeped through at that moment with neither of them knowing, something that caused the rigid man to unclench his hand and let the crimson-tinted shards join the rest of the broken glass on the floor. Unconsciously, once more, her hand moved to remove the few more glittering fragments still sticking to his hand, so pale that she could see the sterile white of cybernetic implantation underneath.

He could have chosen something more overt, something less human, more befitting the Knight of Ice and Steel, yet he didn't.

Aura shimmered, and the cuts closed themselves. She let go of his hand, which fell back to the side of his body, where his gaze was still locked with.

For a long moment the silence between them was too sacred for words.

"...I," His mouth moved, his head shaking as the no longer bleeding hand rose and found his forehead. "I just want this one to be over with."

"...Not every war is one you can fight with guns and swords, Jaune." Her eyes and voice were soft. Remarkably so despite what they were exchanging just minutes before. "Not every peace is one you can just bring to through an ocean of blood."

A humorless, bitter snort pierced through the painful silence.

"Isn't that how we did it the last _times_? This '_sacrosanct_' peace, baptized by the blood of billions? ...What's a few more liters spilt going to do?" The man uttered, on his face a pained, forced smile. "And is your way of war really so different from mine? Blood and steel, all the same."

He seemed to froze as she reached forward with her hands again, unwilling and rigid. He only tensed up further as she pulled his hand covering his eyes away, and forced him to lock eyes with hers - not as the General and the Headmistress but as Knight and Huntress.

"Yes." She softly spoke, cupping the clasps of his chin and staring into his eyes. "Mine doesn't involves slaughtering the very ones we've sworn to protect."

There was no trace of a doubt in her voice. Just a simple reaffirmation of a fact that the man had, desperately, tried to distance himself from. Her hands unfurled around his chin, and fell lower until they braced upon his chest. Her silver eyes gazed into the Knight's - no, _Jaune's_ blue eyes. The mask he still so stubbornly try to hold onto shaking, crumbling, _if she were to just..._

"Mine doesn't require you to become a _monster_."

The mask shattered. Her final blow struck true. The man was silent. There was no more retorts.

As she stared into his eyes, she could see the unraveling, crumbling columns inside. Brick by brick of the walls and persona and plans he had painstakingly put together falling apart, stripped away. From the master tactician with no clear enemy to fight, to the grand general, the master-less knight, the leader, the survivor and the hero all stripped away until left there was only a haunted man, a broken man, _her friend_, begging her for direction and guidance.

_a few words, and a firm push..._

She pushed on, closing the distance between them two.

"...That fireworks. You planned it, didn't you?" He gasped out, the last bit of his will falling silent as her hands cupped his cheeks, turning his eyes to face hers once more. Whirring mechanical blues locked with glowing silver eyes. Wary and cautious, almost _afraid_ of what she was going to do, to ask of him - for he knew that whatever she asked right now, he would _obey_.

His breath steepened as she pressed her body into his. But there was no more resistance as she lean into his ear and-

no. _she couldn't be so cruel to him._

_Ruby_ stopped herself. Their bodies holding that firm yet precarious position for neither knew how long, before she closed her eyes and lean into his ear once more.

"...Tonight is the Beacon Ball, Jaune. You still owe me a dance from that time."

The man blinked, his mind halting at her unexpected request.

"That... was 30 years ago." He quietly spoke, staring wide-eyed at her. "You still remember?"

"_Mhmm_. If you still want to." She took a step back, but reached out her hand. A sad, but honest smile on her face.

He took her hand.

They danced.

It was nothing fancy, nothing glamorous. Nothing extravagant like the Ball room below. There was no music, no orchestrals nor marching bands, and only the sound of their footsteps on marble floor and whirring motors guided their moves.

His actions were robotic but not awkward, half-forgotten memories bringing themselves back to be used once more. She danced after him, following his lead and leading him, gentle guiding hands and not asserted dominance.

The pace began to pick up, slowly until a breathtaking but familiar speed is reached. Her muscles burned, breaths narrow and hot but her blood rushed and she let out a laugh. His motors whirred, mechanical but more and more human, their hands interlinked as their bodies glided on the slippery marble floor, silhouettes spinning in the dimlit star light. The shattered moon was their backdrop as her body was lifted into the air, landing gracefully on her toes as she spun around and latched to him, grinning delightfully as it was her turn to spun him around, narrowly weaving through the oak wood desk with the silver glass tray.

She let out a laugh as she was picked up and lifted past the pile of broken glasses, her hands digging into the crooks of his neck as his found the space between her back and bottom before landing gracefully like a Cheshire cat. Muscles burned, even hotter with each touch and spin. They spun closer, faster; aura burning and Semblances free creating a whirl-storm of petals and light. A whirl-storm they are lost in, as they spin and spin; their selves temporarily forgotten until only themselves are left. Moaning, giggling and gazing into each-other's eyes - _Ruby and Jaune, not anything else._

Only long after did they stop, when even his motored muscles were tired and her arms and legs aching, tangled with his on the floor and their minds lost in bliss.

"That... was... _amazing_..." She gasped out, both of them gasping for breaths.

He nodded, motored iris never unlocking with hers.

Her hot breaths breezed on his pale, scarred skinned. He breathed in, nostrils and grafted lungs filled with the unblemished smell of rose petals.

Their hands below were still linked, both covered with the same amber stain.

"Jaune... _listen_."

Motors whirred, and the tiny smile on his lips became wary, but he was too exhausted to have anything back. Her hand let go of his, and reached up to place itself over his heart, which was thumping steadily and unceased. Her silver orbs locked with his blues once more.

"Listen to your heart, Jaune... that's all I ask of you." She murmured softly, her other hand cupping the side of his face. Her thumb tracing a line of scar underneath his eye. "That's all I want you to do."

He stared at her for a long moment. Doubts, insecurity and bewilderment all mixed together in one. Before tightly-wounded motors in too blue eyes relaxed and closed, and he nodded wordlessly, serenely into the crook of her neck.

As they sunk into a blissful torpor.

* * *

**_A/N: Please drop a reply or review if you liked/disliked the story! Constructive criticism welcome!_**


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